As you can see in the GOES-13 infrared animation above, the structure of Matthew has gone through a few changes today with some northerly shear blunting the northern portion of the hurricane, although this hasn’t lead to any notable weakening as of yet. In the last couple of frames, very strong convection fires again as the hurricane is approaching Grand Bahama. Also of note is the strong area of convection that fired to the northeast of Matthew today, though not as strong as what was seen in the Caribbean over the weekend.

The GOES-13 infrared imagery with GLD-360 15-minute lightning density overlaid shows a couple distinct areas of lightning activity, the aforementioned convection to the northeast and another area in the northeast eyewall. This latter area has been pulsing all day and may suggest that the shear mentioned earlier was being fought off by the deep pulses of convection. Note that this area passed over the western portion of Providence Island and is getting ready to move ashore in southwest Grand Bahama. This is where the aircraft is showing the strongest winds (near 120 kts or 140 mph).

NUCAPS sounding (black circle on above image) showing some drying and warming above 700 mb to the north of Hurricane Matthew. Note that this isn’t a clean sounding since there are clouds in the scene, but the multiple warm layers are certainly interesting.

So, where did this shear originate from? I haven’t quite found the source, but I did pull up a NOAA Unique Combined Atmospheric Profiles (NUCAPS) sounding that may not be the most representative of the northern portion of the cyclone due to clouds, but does show an interesting drying at mid-levels. Note there are no winds as this is a satellite-borne sounding looking down, not to be confused with a raob.

Another product that has been available to forecasters at the National Hurricane Center, Weather Prediction Center, and NESDIS Satellite Analysis Branch is the GOES-R Rain Rate/QPE product provided by Bob Kuligowski at NESDIS. These are 15 minute rain rates that are derived using infrared brightness temperatures, then calibrated with microwave imagery. Note the values near the eyewall approaching 1″-1.50″ per 15 minutes!!!

The 7-day QPE accumulation image above shows many values over western Haiti and eastern Cuba approaching and exceeding 20″, which might even be conservative in the higher terrain areas. Note other interesting features like the rain shadow in northern Dominican Republic and amounts that exceed (then re-accumulate) 20″-45″ near where Matthew slowed north of Columbia. The now infamous “convective blob” is where the largest totals are located and might be reasonable for this case considering the extreme lightning and intensely cold cloud tops.

This final animation shows the very intense lightning activity associated with the inner core organization and infamous “convective blob” that was trailing Hurricane Matthew through the southern Caribbean. The persistent lightning in the northern eyewall is interesting in that it’s rather atypical for rapid intensification in Atlantic hurricanes. Meanwhile, the lightning associated with the blob is very intense at 15 minute increments and helps support those extreme rain amounts that fell over the Caribbean.

So, it’s no secret. . .Hurricane Patricia is mean and is disrespecting the records and will soon visit Mexico in a most unwelcome way. With a current intensity of 175 kts (200 mph) and a central pressure that is a mindboggling 879 mb, this hurricane has joined the elite list of “most powerful storms ever recorded on Earth!” I would like to give you some satellite perspective of this incredible storm and I will let the animations do most of the talking.

The GOES-13 Infrared animation above with the GLD-360 Lightning Density product (produced at OPC) shows the intense bursts of lightning around the eyewall during the rapid intensification stage overnight and continuing into this afternoon. Typically this indicates weakening, but due to the relative lack of lightning in the outer bands (away form the northern band near the Mexico coast), I would hypothesize it’s more due to the intense thunderstorms activity in the eyewall with cloud-top temperatures near -90C.

Not to be completely outdone, a massive extratropical storm is strengthening in the South Atlantic Ocean north of Antarctica which the GFS initialized at 934 mb!

This is truly an incredible day and I didn’t even touch on the recurvature of Typhoon Champi, the heavy rains occurring and expanding from Texas into Louisiana, as well as the 3 hurricane-force storms that the Ocean Prediction Center is anticipating over the next couple of days in the North Pacific and North Atlantic!!!! These are busy days and I’ll try to post more to keep everyone updated with more satellite fun!

While West African tropical waves continue to propagate out into the tropical North Atlantic, none are expected to develop into a tropical cyclone soon. Today, the 2:00 PM EDT NHC Two-Day Graphical Tropical Weather Outlook shows one of these waves accompanied by a broad low pressure system, which particularly looks impressive on satellite imagery (see image below). Still, environmental conditions are not too favorable for a cyclone to form.

NHC Two-Day Graphical Tropical Weather Outlook on July 29 at 2:00 PM EDT depicting a West African tropical wave accompanied by a broad low pressure system with low chance of cyclone formation

Generally, tropical waves are accompanied with areas of disturbed weather that along with other dynamics of the atmosphere (that include climatological and synoptic conditions) could lead to cyclogenesis. One of the main favorable atmospheric conditions for tropical cyclone development is sustained, deep, moist convection. However, constant and extensive episodes of Saharan Air Layer (SAL) outbreaks are disrupting the formation of a nearly-saturated middle troposphere, which has contributed to the overall weak tropical waves pattern.

Below, enhancements of Meteosat satellite imagery with the TAFB surface analysis overlaid depict various tropical waves being affected by SAL outbreaks during mid July. The imagery show how the dry air (orange and yellow shades) and dust (pink shade) associated with this Saharan airmass cover a large part of the waves environment, thus acting to suppress any convection originating in the marine layer.

Last week I posted on the very active tropical Pacific Ocean with four storms occurring simultaneously. Tropical Cyclone Pam (17P) made a devastating visit to the island nation of Vanuatu as a Category 5 (145 kts or 165 mph) cyclone and has since joined the westerlies after passing near New Zealand as a much weaker system. Currently, the majority of the region has quieted down some, but Tropical Cyclone Nathan (east of Queensland) and Tropical Storm Bavi (West Pacific) are still active, while Tropical Cyclone Olwyn dissipated after making landfall in Western Australia. Jim Kells (OPC) compiled a few animations that show the evolution of all four tropical cyclones starting on 03/08/15. The imagery is courtesy of the MTSAT-2 satellite and we are eagerly anticipating the new Himawari-8 satellite data over the next few months.

MTSAT-2 Infrared satellite animation of the four tropical cyclones developing in the tropical Pacific and Indian Oceans valid from 03/08/2015 – 03/16/2015.

MTSAT-2 Infrared (enhanced) animation similar to the previous animation.

The MJO is currently near or at a record amplification in Phase 7 and as it swung through Phase 6 to 7, a strong westerly wind burst developed near the equator, while there was enhanced upward motion or ventilation at 200 mb. This has also been coupled with a sudden drop in the Southern Oscillation Index (another ENSO indicator).

Empirical Wave Propagation forecast for the next 40 days courtesy of CPC.

According to one forecast (above), the Empirical Wave Propagation forecast shows a return of favorable tropical cyclone formation conditions (green shading) appearing in the same region from the end of March into early April (the season typically winds down in the Southern Hemisphere after April).

Finally, notice that this region is where the warmest SSTs reside in the tropical Pacific, along with the strongest warm anomalies. This is typical of a Modoki El Nino where the warmest conditions are in the Nino 3.4 region or near the Dateline. Also notice how the water near the coast of South America is colder than normal. This shows a mixed signal and makes one wonder whether El Nino conditions will be maintained or expand east with time. . .

There are certain things you can count on seeing in October. Great post-season baseball! Pumpkin flavored everything! Halloween! Super Typhoons?! To celebrate the successful launch of Himawari-8 from Japan last night, I thought it would be appropriate to post on this latest super typhoon.

Super Typhoon Vongfong has intensified impressively in the last 24 hours after passing through the Marianas Islands yesterday as a Category 2 typhoon with winds ~105 mph. As of 1500 UTC, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center initialized Vongfong as a 135 kt (155 mph) super typhoon and the Satellite Analysis Branch (SAB) of NESDIS classified it as a T7.0, which would support Category 5 winds. Since that time, there has been a slight warming of the cloud tops surrounding the eye, but there is no strong indication of an eyewall replacement cycle, yet. It’s possible that Vongfong may still strenghten some in the next 12-24 hours.

The satellite animation above shows Vongfong’s rapid organization overnight with intermittent lightning bursts in the eyewall during the rapid intensification. Typically, hurricanes and typhoons don’t exhibit much lightning due to the lack of convective available potential energy (CAPE) and dry air near the strongest thunderstorms. During intense thunderstorm growth, most notably in the outer rain bands, there can be some graupel (soft hail/snowballs) which supports lightning, but the inner core is usually quieter (of course, this varies based on basin). We have seen this before in the West Pacific (see posts on Haiyan and Rammasun).

89GHz RGB image from AMSR-2 on JAXA valid on 10/07/14.

89GHz RGB image from GMI on GPM valid on 10/07/14.

The two microwave image passes above show the convective structure of Vongfong under the clouds where the red coloring indicates heavier precipitation or convection. These high resolution microwaves images are used by JTWC, SAB, and the National Hurricane Center when classification are being made, especially for fixing the initial center positions.

Another interesting way of looking at the microwave imagery is with lightning overlaid. The lightning strikes for the previous 30 minutes were overlaid on this 0719 UTC Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM) satellite pass. As you can see, the lightning matches up quite well with the red colorings (convection). Notice the lightning cluster in the southeast eyewall!

The Day-Night Band image from VIIRS on S-NPP valid at 1703 UTC on 10/07/14. Courtesy of Dan Lindsey (NESDIS/STAR)

Finally, this incredible Day-Night Band (DNB) image was captured by the S-NPP satellite this afternoon. That is not a traditional visible satellite image. . .that is from the moon light! The Proving Grounds receive DNB imagery from NASA SPoRT and CIMSS on a routine basis to help forecasters identify significant features and help with center fixes of tropical cyclones, similar to the microwave imagery.

Well, we are winding down the GOES-14 Super Rapid Scan Operations for GOES-R (SRSOR) for 2014 and we have seen three interesting tropical cyclone cases (Lowell, Marie, Cristobal), each unique in their own way. Hurricane Cristobal has more or less maintained intensity over the last two days and the lightning bursts have been very interesting to observe using the 2-min imagery overlaid on the SRSOR imagery. Today’s lightning activity, similar to yesterday, featured intermittent activity in the large band to the east and southeast of the hurricane. Meanwhile, additional thunderstorms developed near a pseudo-warm front feature to the northeast of the storm. I have included the OPC West Atlantic Surface Analysis for reference:

OPC West Atlantic Surface Analysis valid at 18z on 08/27/14.

Another interesting feature is the lightning bursting near the center of Cristobal, especially at the very end of the animation. A strong overshooting top is observed in the visible imagery and there is a quick uptick in concentrated lightning activity associated with that cell. A possible supercell? I think it’s possible and a sign that Cristobal is still entraining some dry air into the core. What other features can you identify?

GOES-14 SRSOR visible imagery with Vaisala GLD-360 2-min lightning density overlaid in 2-min increments. Animation is courtesy of James Kells (OPC). Click on the animation to expand in a separate window.

It’s a shame that we will not have additional SRSOR data this year, but Mother Nature has put on quite the show and it’s incredible how we can utilize our technology in new, inventive ways to assist forecasters.

As a reminder, GOES-R will launch in early 2016 and will contain a Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) which will help in observing intracloud lightning as well as cloud-to-ground lightning.

For more information on the GOES-14 SRSOR, please visit: http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/srsor2014/GOES-14_SRSOR.html

Another day of GOES-14 Super Rapid Scan Operations for GOES-R. . .another hurricane. Now, I know. . .Hurricane Cristobal is not a very photogenic hurricane, but during the course of the day, the storm has shown signs of better organization. One very noticeable feature has been the increase of lightning in the large, elongated band in the eastern quadrant. Over the last couple of hours, there has been a marked increase in lightning near the center of Cristobal. Could this be dry air intrusion? A sign of intensification? I’ll let you be the judge. The lightning data here is from the Vaisala GLD-360 lightning strikes, but is displayed as a 2-minute density product which was developed collaboratively among the Ocean Prediction Center (OPC), the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) Center for Satellite Applications and Research (STAR), and the Cooperative Institute of Climate and Satellites (CICS) at the University of Maryland. The 2-min lightning density is time matched with the SRSOR in 2-min increments for a smooth (ish) animation.

GOES-14 SRSOR (feeds courtesy of CIRA and CIMSS) with Vaisala GLD-360 2-min lightning density overlaid. Thanks to James Kells (OPC) for creating the animation. Click on image to expand in another window.

While I have your attention, thanks to some quick work by Christopher Juckins and Frances Achorn of OPC, we now have a public, real-time version of the 30-min lightning density product overlaid on GOES-13 infrared imagery. Feel free to bookmark these pages for future use: